1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of automotive hand implements, and more particularly, to a device that can be used to pry open a frozen vehicle door.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are a number of design patents for automotive ice scrapers or other types of scrapers, and there are also several utility patents for emergency car tools. None of these inventions, however, serves the function of the present invention, namely, to pry open a frozen car door, and none possesses the simplicity and structural attributes of the present invention. These inventions are discussed below in chronological order from oldest to most recent.
U.S. Pat. No. D168,831 (Derlein, 1951) is a design patent for a combined coat hanger and ice scraper for automobiles. The device has a hook, but the hook is designed for hanging clothes—not for opening frozen car doors. There are in fact two clothes hooks to this device, and neither hook could be used to open a car door because the ends of the hooks are too blunt and also because of the orientation of the hooks in relation to the rest of the device.
U.S. Pat. No. D265,269 (Frantz, 1982) is a design patent for an ice scraper with an attached snow brush. This invention is distinguishable from the present invention because it does not include a hook for prying open a frozen car door.
U.S. Pat. No. D293,499 (Senecal et al., 1987) is a design patent for a scraper. The scraper has a protrusion that extends laterally, but it is not a hook, and it would not work for prying open frozen car doors because the protrusion is not shaped so that it could curve around the edge of a car door.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,251,351 (Klotz, 1993) provides a combination tool for motor vehicles. The tool comprises an ice scraper and/or a squeegee for removing moisture, an emergency hammer and/or a cutting element and/or a sharpening element for wiper blades and/or a container for a slip and/or lubricating agent on a handle. The primary functions of this tool are ice scraping and water removal. The tool also functions as an emergency hammer, belt cutter, wiper blade sharpener and lubrication agent dispenser. Although this tool obviously has many functions, one thing it does not do is pry open frozen car doors.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,542,139 (Boivin, 1996) describes a multi-purpose tool for cutting, prying and punching in the event of an emergency situation. The cutting and punching aspects of this invention are not relevant to the present invention. The prying aspect is a blunt end on the tip of a blade with a serrated cutting edge. This tool could not be used to pry open a frozen car door because the blunt end would not fit around the edge of the car door, and the blade would damage the vehicle's paint.
U.S. Pat. No. D416,390 (Corriveau, 1999) is a design patent for a brush handle with a blade. The blade is not a hook, and it is not designed for prying open a car door. In fact, a blade would damage the paint on a vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,574,816 (Yu Chen, 2003) involves another emergency tool for automobiles. This tool combines a knife for cutting a seatbelt, a hammer specially designed for breaking open a window, and two different screwdrivers. This tool does not include any feature that could be used for prying open a frozen car door.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an implement that can be used to open frozen vehicle doors when a person's fingers cannot get around the edge of the door to pull it open. It is a further object of the present invention to provide two different embodiments of the frozen vehicle door puller—one that can be carried on a key chain and another that can be kept in a person's home or office.